1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to techniques for supporting resolution-independent display of Internet (Web) content to allow Web pages to be scaled (zoomed) and panned for better viewing and/or to fit any resolution or screen size. More particularly, the invention relates to apparatus and methods for zoom enabling the display of content in an Internet information browser (i.e., Web browser) by retrieving and translating HyperText Markup Language (HTML), eXtensible Markup Language (XML), and other Internet content to scalable representations of that content.
2. Description of the Related Art
Text only Internet information browsers began as a project at the CERN, European Organization for Nuclear Research, facility in Geneva Switzerland. From its inception the intent was to provide a mesh or web of access to data with a common user interface. Browsers moved from the academic environment when NCSA, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign developed Mosaic, an Internet information browser and World Wide Web client.
Internet content is stored in multiple file formats. These formats include HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and XML (eXtended Markup Language) as well as graphic file format GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) and JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group). These four file formats constitute the majority of Internet content. Font size and resizing display area for content can alter the size of the display of Internet content in existing browsers. The majority of Internet content displays as a flat single resolution with no browser support for zoom.
Much of the Internet content has been designed for display on desktop computers with a single target resolution. Even though HTML has the ability to adapt to changes in screen resolution, major Internet content providers have chosen to create their Web pages using fixed resolution structures, such as tables. This gives them the ability to control the look and feel of their Web sites. This fixed resolution approach has evolved to the point that the fixed resolution layout of Web pages has become the most common method to brand or uniquely identify Web sites. While this fixed resolution approach is good for site branding and product differentiation it does present a daunting technical problem for display of Internet content (designed for desktop computers) on small screen, low resolution, or different aspect ratio devices, such as cell phones and hand held computers.